Azerbaijan gained control over the 21-kilometer section last December following an Armenian troop withdrawal from contested areas along Armenia’s Syunik province which was controversially ordered by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Pashinian’s government on Thursday banned Armenian vehicles from driving along it, saying that Azerbaijani authorities have introduced passport and customs checks for them. It said they should use a newly reconstructed alternative road bypassing the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Iranian truck drivers interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service complained that the road is too narrow and tortuous for their heavy vehicles and prolongs their travel time in Syunik. They said they have to use it in order to avoid paying Azerbaijani customs officials $130 per trip.
“Big trucks don’t get any help [from Armenian authorities] on this road in case of having problems,” said one of the drivers.
An RFE/RL crew witnessed several trucks that visibly had trouble moving along the new road connecting Syunik’s two largest towns, Kapan and Goris. One of them nearly flipped over.
In Yerevan, Ruben Rubinian, a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament and senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, admitted that the Azerbaijani border controls have “caused some difficulties” for Syunik residents and other travellers. But he insisted that the alternative road is passable for all types of vehicles.
Rubinian also said that none of the three Armenian villages close to the Azerbaijani-controlled section of the old Goris-Kapan road has been cut off from the rest of the country.
The villages are currently connected with other parts of Syunik through dirt roads. The government has pledged to quickly refurbish and pave them. In the meantime, the village chiefs say that their communities can only be accessed by off-road vehicles.
Reaching one of those villages, Bardzravan, proved quite problematic. Local residents said they have been effectively deprived of transport links.
“My husband is sick in bed,” complained one woman. “We can’t find a car to transport him [to hospital.]”
“As soon as it starts snowing here we’ll be completely cut off,” said another villager. “Everything is a big problem in this village. We are in deadlock.”
Armenian border guards deployed in the area did not allow RFE/RL journalists to visit the two other isolated villages, Vorotan and Shurnukh, saying that they must obtain permission from the National Security Service.
Echoing Pashinian’s statements, Rubinian asserted that Baku imposed the border checks because of Yerevan’s refusal to agree to a special transport corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via the portion of Syunik bordering Iran. The Azerbaijani side could only transport goods through Armenian territory under transit procedures adopted worldwide, he said.
“All roads passing through Armenia and Azerbaijan must be … under the full control of Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively,” Rubinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev again claimed on Friday, however, that Baku will secure a permanent transport “corridor” for Nakhichevan. He said it will unite all Turkic states and connect them to Europe.